In the past great difficulty has been experienced in handling long sheet piling without the piling taking a permanent set while it is being lifted off the ground. The only solution to this difficulty has been to "whip" the piling into the air, i.e., lifting and dragging the piling sheet as rapidly as possible. This practice has nevertheless often resulted in piling taking a permanent set and in some cases has resulted in the dragged end of a pile being damaged. Since the dragged end of the pile is the end that has to be mated and interconnected with the previously driven piling, damage of the dragged end is especially objectionable.
By utilizing an elongated rigid but light-weight structural member, together with a plurality of spaced electromagnets, the present invention lifts a pile with no possibility of the sheet taking a set bend nor of one end of the pile being damaged since there is no dragging. The device also positions the pile properly for alignment and interconnection with the next adjacent pile which has already been driven into the ground. Since piling which presents these problems runs from 90 feet in length up to and over 110 feet, it will be apparent that the present invention solves a very real problem which has been present in the past.